Forever Gone
by The Rainbow Ninjamaster
Summary: The untold story of Neville's lost love. Mostly canon. I suck at summaries. One-shot.


Since I failed at my only other story, I thought I would try a one-shot (Like I think I said I would). So yeah, short intro thing (:

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This makes me very sad.**

Sometimes things did not always work out the way you want them to. Whether it be something simple like keeping your clothes clean, or something more important, like the job you needed to put food on the table. For Neville Longbottom, it was something much more important than anything else in the world.

It was his love, his life, his everything. And he lost it. He lost her.

He could never forgive himself.

[O_O]

For all those years, every moment they spent together, it had been heaven on Earth. But he had done nothing. Not a thing. Ever.

He never wanted to ruin it. It was perfect. They were friends – no wait, they were a bit more than that. They were best friends. Only friends.

As much time as they had spent together in Neville's seventh year, everyone thought they were a couple. But they were not. And no one knew how much he wanted them to be.

No one ever would.

[O_O]

It was not love at first sight. But it was love all the same. He could remember the first time he had seen her. He was seven, and he was with his grandmother. They were going to Diagon Alley to get the new Gilderoy Lockhart book, _Simple Household Spells_. He remembered this because Lockhart's face on the cover stared at him creepily the whole way home.

It was at Flourish and Blotts where he saw _her_.

She was with her parents, looking in the Magical Plants and Creatures section.

Of course, he had no idea who she was at the time. But looking back, trying to find any memory he could of her, he found it. As vague as it was, he treasured it more than any memories of anyone else.

It was not until the later years of his Hogwarts career that he started to get to know her. She was not perfect, but that was what he loved about her. She did not play Quidditch at all, but she liked the game, there was no doubt about that.

The first few times he had talked to her, he had not thought much about it. She was just another girl, and he was just another guy. Neither had shown any interest in each other at first. As he spent more and more time with her, through Dumbledore's Army, he felt himself liking her more.

They started hanging out outside of Dumbledore's Army. He told her about the plants he loved, his _Mimbulus Mimbletonia_ and a few others he had at his home and the Greenhouses. She would tell him about where she had been and what exotic plants and animals she had seen. This fascinated him. To be near someone so similar to him – but yet, so different.

She was less quiet and shy than he was. She stood up for the people she cared about – her family and friends, although she did not have much of either. He wanted her to stand up for him like that – he wanted to know she cared, the way he did for her.

At the end of the year, everything took a turn for the worse. The fiasco at the Ministry got everyone upset, and he knew he let Harry down by accidentally destroying the prophecy. He wondered if he had let _her_ down.

If he did, she never showed it. He wondered if she even knew.

[O_O]

Neville began his sixth year. He talked to her a little on the train and after the feast. Despite the tough summer that everyone had, she looked okay, her normal self.

He saw her little throughout the beginning of the year. Without Dumbledore's Army, he had no excuse to talk to her. But they still did. It was not enough. It was never enough.

Right before Christmas, Slughorn had his Christmas Party. And he was invited. The invitees were allowed to bring a date. For the first time all year, Neville was grateful for Slughorn's parties.

It was his chance - their chance - to take the next step and become more than friends. He could do it innocently. He had it all planned out. He would say: "I have to go to this party being thrown by Slughorn, and he wants us to bring a date, so I was thinking, since we're friends, you could go with me?", and she would say "Yes, Of course" Then they would go together, he would "accidentally" lead her under a piece of mistletoe, near a crowd so she would have to kiss him. It would be perfect.

Of course, it was not. Before he could even ask, she had told him she was going with someone else. As friends. He was relieved he did not have to ask her, but even more upset that someone asked her before he got the chance to.

He went to the party, alone. He saw her with her date. Neville felt like he was going to throw something, or cry, or possibly both. He knew her date was only with her as a friend, but it still made his insides fill with jealousy.

At that point, Filch had come to the party, dragging Malfoy by the ear. As amusing as that sight had been, after all the hell Malfoy had given him, he chose that moment to leave, when everyone was too busy staring at Malfoy to notice him. He could not bear the site of _her_ with another guy much longer.

While he walked back to his dorm, he realized something. He did not like her, or even love her. It was so much more.

He was in love with her.

After the party, they hung out like they always had. Their relationship was tenser then it had been before. Neville wondered if it was him making things worse, the seriousness of the attacks in the outside world, or her knowing there was something more than friendship on her mind.

The year came to a close with another tragedy – something Neville had been getting used to, with Harry, Ron and Hermione around. They were danger magnets, always in the middle of what was happening. This time it was worse. Not because he was injured, no. The fact she had visited him had made him feel so much better. No, this time it was Dumbledore. The only one You-Know-Who ever feared.

For the first time in a while, the events of the outside world began to affect him. That scared Neville, because that would mean they would affect her too. And he could not let that happen.

[O_O]

The first thing Neville did when he got to Platform 9 ¾ was make sure she was okay, which she was. The train ride was not boring at all, they shared a compartment and talked and laughed like nothing had happened, that the world was not falling apart.

To him, the world could never fall apart as long as she was there.

When they reached Hogwarts, Neville almost wished he had stayed home. It was terrible – everything looked the same, but the aura was different. It was dark, twisted, and as he soon found out, ruled by Snape. Everyone felt it, and no one denied it.

Neville vowed to find a way to protect her, to protect everyone. To save them all. With that, Dumbledore's Army was reborn out of the ashes. To see everyone fighting, everyone working together was an amazing sight.

One October day, he was sent to deliver something to the Carrow teaching Muggle Studies. When he got there, he saw a sight he could not forget. The Carrow – he could not tell which one – had hit _her_, and was still hitting her. This filled him with rage; this made him so angry he actually wanted to kill the Carrow. Instead, he walked away. With that, he had no more tolerance for the Carrows and Snape at all.

Starting that day, he stood up for himself, stood up for everyone. He put even more into D.A. than he had before. He would not let them hurt her. Next thing he knew, he was the one getting hit, having curses thrown at him. He refused to do what the Carrows told him, and he paid for it. But it was all worth it, as long it was not _her_.

He was spending more time with her. He felt safe with her, like he could do anything, should she ask for it. While the rest of the world was in chaos, while people were disappearing from school, he had no other thought than her, and doing whatever it would take to save her, even if it meant destroying You-Know-Who himself.

The worst happened over the Christmas holiday – she never returned. Many of the students had been pulled from school, but he had a suspicion that her safety was not the reason she was taken away.

After this, if it was even possible, he worked harder than before. He could not let the Death Eaters win, because wherever she was, he knew they had her.

Then the battle happened. The huge battle that happened and killed at least fifty people. For the whole battle he was in a daze, he was thinking of her yet again. He fought for her, he was willing to die for her, and she never knew it. She would never know it.

After the battle, he saw her. They had reunited, and gave each other a hug. She gave him a short kiss on his cheek. It meant more to him than she would ever know. He savored that moment in his head for weeks following the battle.

He decided he would finally take the chance and tell her how he felt. But it was too late. She was gone.

[O_O]

She was not dead, he knew that, but she was gone for a long time. She did not write to him for a few years. Neville's heart started to break. He longed to see her again, to look into her eyes, or even just receive a letter in her handwriting.

About seven years after the battle, he finally received a letter from her. When he saw that it was from her, his heart felt whole once again. He felt jubilant, like the letter was going to bring them together again, as close as they were before, likely even closer.

He opened the letter, and his face fell. His heart instantly shattered into a million pieces, ones so tiny that no one but her could ever piece them back together. But he knew she would never fix it. He read over the letter again.

She had sent him an invitation. To her wedding with another man.

He showed up anyways. She looked beautiful. He painfully faked a smile, pretending he was happy she was marrying a man who was not him.

As he watched the wedding take place, he could not help but notice how happy she was. Her face betrayed how much she loved her soon-to-be husband. Neville could not help to smile at this. However much he hated whomever she was marrying, he could not help but be glad that she was happy.

He left the reception as soon as he could. Just because he was glad she was happy did not mean he would stay and watch her with a man who was not him.

Neville did, however find a little bit of love in a girl named Hannah Abbott. His love for Hannah, however, was not nearly as much as it had been for _her_.

[O_O]

Neville got out of his bed in his office and stepped outside. He walked around the corridors of Hogwarts as he sometimes did, reminiscing on the times they had spent together. The was a window where they had looked out one day trying to spot Grawp in the forest, and a closet where they had hid from Filch in one night during his seventh year.

He slipped out the front door, and walked down to the lake. He stood for a second facing its waters, watching the full moon and the stars reflect off of the surface. Then he sat down. This time he looked up at the stars, and then the moon.

The moon's beauty had been the only thing other than plants that had really fascinated him. Only recently had he realized why.

The moon showed the truth, no matter how painful it might be, no matter how awkward. It did not lie. The moon reflected _her_.

He whispered her name, too quietly for anyone else around to hear.

"_Luna_"

**I tried to make it not very easy to figure out who the girl who Neville keeps referring to was. I am interested in hearing what you think of this, and when you found out who "she" was. And the little [O_O] things are supposed to be little Dobby head things, in case you were wondering. **


End file.
